Joe Tilson Biography
Joe Tilson was born in 1928 and is associated with the beginnings of pop art in London. In 1955, after winning the Rome Prize, he went to live and work in Rome where he met Joslyn Morton who he married in Venice. Back to London Tilson met Kitaj, Hockney, Boshier, Phillips, Jones and Caulfield who were students at the Royal College of Art. He exhibited widely internationally from 1958.
After having exposed in 1964 in the British pavilion at the XXXII Biennale di Venezia when American Pop Art exploded, in 1970, he started a series of works inspired by Pound, Joyce and Yeats and their interest in the traditions of the Mediterranean including Neo Platonism, called Alchera.
The basis of this project is a circular mnemonic device relating to the Four cardinal points, the Four Elements, the Four Seasons, the lunar months, labyrinths ladders, words and symbols.
His work is represented in public and private collections worldwide.